One Season in the Sun

Joe Schuster

A Gemma Open Door book

These are the tales of one-season wonders.

When Mark Buehrle threw his perfect game against Tampa Bay, it was DeWayne Wise, the ninth inning White Sox defensive sub who made the leaping, back against the wall catch of a fly ball, robbing Gabe Kapler of a home run and preserving Buehrle’s achievement. Until that moment, Wise was virtually anonymous. Yet for that one moment in July, Wise moved into the spotlight and TheLos Angeles Times called his one of the top ten moments in sports for 2009.

But when the season ended, Wise was a free agent, able to sign only a minor league deal. He went to Toronto.

The history of baseball is filled with players like Wise—players who are good enough to reach the top of the sport but who, for any number of reasons, hang at the edges of the game. Some manage to spend only a week or two in the major leagues and then disappear back into the minors. Many leave the sport. These are the tales of one-season wonders. Here are stories of the brief moments when, for an afternoon, a week, a couple of months, they stood on the field with the best of the best in the game.

Joe Schuster teaches at Webster University. His short fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, and The Missouri Review, among others, and his articles have been published in USA Today, St. Louis Post Dispatch and the revered, retired Sport. His novel The Might-Have Been was released in 2012.

“Far from being just about baseball, The Might-Have-Been is about the persistence of ambition and dreams in both sports and civilian life. This is a very telling novel about American pastimes and American identities, well worth reading.” —Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love

About Gemma Open Doors

An innovative program of original works by some of our most beloved modern writers, originally designed in Ireland to promote adult literacy. These fresh stories showcase new writing from both best-selling authors and emerging voices.

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